Yr 1 spellings

[Foreverweeding]

Can anyone advise please? Dc had first spellings given last week as follows:
The, and, was, my, went

Dc only got one correct (dc is only just starting to read with confidence and is August baby with delayed speech due to earlier hearing loss)

This week, spellings are:

Said, of, there, when, some

My concern is that if dc struggled with "went", then won't "said" and "there" be too much? I don't want dc put under too much stress too early, and dc already panicked at last week's test.

I feel as DCs reading is just starting to take off, then spellings may take some time yet, beyond the easy cvc words.

Dc does Reading Eggs at home and enjoys it and is doing well, together with daily reading of school reading books and those from home.

Can any teachers give me some advice please. I will though speak to DCs teacher, although he isn't always very communicative.

Many thanks for reading!

I'm afraid spelling is often taught badly as the lists you posted demonstrates. Writing/spelling often lags slightly behind reading and if he is still working at cvc level it isn't appropriate to expect him to spell words with more complex spellings.

said is a cvc word but he needs to know that is a spelling for the sound /e/
of is a very common word but has the unique spell for the sound /v/
there he needs to know that is /air/
when he needs to know that is a spelling for the sound /w/
some he needs to know that is a spelling for /u/ and is a spelling for /m/

I very much doubt he has been taught this yet his teacher expects him to remember a random list of words.

Forget about the 'Look, Say, Cover, Write & Check' technique for spelling. It's not helpful.

Relate spelling practice to the sounds in the words. Get him to break the spoken word into its component sounds and spell each sound. The words he's been given to learn are what might be termed' tricky' in some phonics programmes and are taught by identifying the letter/sound correspondences that the child knows and then focussing on learning the unusual one. Once the sounds have been identified they are written in the same order in which they come in the word, saying each sound as it is written. Then, get him to sound out the word he's just written to make sure he's got all the sounds in the right place.

So:

Said, of, there, when, some

Said - he'll know how to spell the /s/ and the /d/, he needs to focus on the unusual 'tricky' 'ai' spelling of the /e/ sound (which also comes in certain, again, curtain & mountain in my accent)

of - the /o/ is straightforward, the 'f' spells a /v/ sound

there - he should know /th/, the 'ere' is just another way to spell the /air/ sound and he'll meet it again in 'where'

when - pity they didn't use 'where' and 'when' because the 'wh' for /w/ (unless you're Scottish) could have been learned for both words. No matter, the 'wh' is the tricky bit and he'll know the /e/ & the /n/

some - there are loads of English words where the o - e split digraph spells an /u/ (as in 'up') sound. That's the tricky bit in this word, he'll know the /c/ and the /m/.

5 things to learn. Do you think he can do it?

ooh, X posted with mrz and she's giving slightly different advice! Take your pick, either will work!

My Y1 DS is comfortable with the "pattern" that lots of question words start with wh-. Doesn't help with "how" but good otherwise.

I agree with pps that finding as many patterns/rules as possible, and playing down "this one is weird and you just have to learn it by heart" should reduce the misery.

Thanks mrz - no it doesn't help being given a seemingly random list of words which, even if he does manage to memorise some, will probably promptly be forgotten when he receives the next bunch. He is so tired this evening (and tearful) that I haven't the heart to say "let's do some spellings".

Thanks for the advice you've given on sounds. I shall work through those with him (when he is up to it). He so wants to write and is always asking how to spell words, but I feel he's having the stuffing knocked out of him at the moment.

Thanks too MaizieD - lots to think about, but some great advice. I also agree that the look, say ..... method isn't great. I actually thought that it had been ditched.

Have you talked to the teacher? My year 1s started spelling homework (4 words from same high frequency word list - school policy, not my choice) after half term, but we've decided to leave the 2 August born children to concentrate on their reading at the moment. Mine do their spelling tests in groups of about 6 with the TA and she then sets them personalised lists of spellings to learn each week. It's hugely time consuming for her and I've taken the view that until they're reading at least blue/green level, it will be a waste of her time setting them spellings to learn. I'd rather they spend their share of her time working on the daily phonics intervention she's doing with them.

Could you suggest that your DS concentrates on reading for a couple of months, and starts spelling homework later on? Alternatively, a (teacher) friend of mine is getting ridiculous spellings home for her daughter - she's complained to the teacher & Head Teacher verbally, in writing and in meetings and she's now told them her daughter won't be learning her spellings. If you can't get anywhere with the teacher, you could just tell them you will be ignoring them for the moment.

Toomuch - I have had a word with the teacher who said he could do them on a whiteboard instead so they can be erased immediately rather than have a permanent record of his mistakes. The only problem with that is that he will still be fearing the test itself whilst he is really only just gaining confidence in his reading. He will still know he is struggling and as such this will, without a doubt, put him off school. Once his reading is at a slightly higher level and his writing is improving, then I would think would be a good time to look at his spelling.

It feels at the moment like asking a baby who has just started crawling, to run 100 metres. They can try, but it just isn't going to happen and you're setting them up to fail.

I think your idea to ask to concentrate on reading for a few months is a good one which I will put to his teacher.

Interestingly he gets other words he has to learn to read (which he usually is able to do easily). He does this with a TA out of the class. I feel a bit overloaded with words tbh - some he is expected to learn just to read and another set he has to learn to spell.

I expect I shall have to have another chat with the teacher, and will have to be assertive if I'm not listened to, as your friend has been!

Thank you for your good advice!

He so wants to write and is always asking how to spell words
In that case he will most definitely get there eventually.

As for boosting his confidence now, u may like to point out to him that he is having trouble remembering the right way to spell some words, only because they have silly spellings, but once he has written them a few times, he will get the hang of them:
e.g. bed, fed, led - said; bun, fun, run - one, far, car, star - are.
Such spellings make no sense and his logical (perhaps highly logical?) brain is having trouble accepting them.

This is sort of a way of treating irregular spellings with the contempt they deserve, rather than something that is really important to learn.

This approach did wonders for my dyslexic son.
He was very good at maths and was initially very upset by his inabiltiy to spell 'properly', especially as his older sister could do so without ever having to work at it. (They eventually both went to one of the two best known unis in England.)

hi just a quick thought which may be more hopeful - if they've just started doing spellings then the teacher perhaps is establishing what they can cope with and will then split them into groups.

ds is in year 2 now but i seem to remember this is how it started in year one and then they were allocated to group 1,2 or 3. group one only learnt group one words (very simple), group 2 did 1 and 2 and poor sods like us in group three ended up having to learn all of them and be expected to write sentences (this on top of other homework of course).

maybe it will settle down once the teacher has grips on where they're at and targets spelling according to ability?

OP - just also wanted to say that your school sounds much like ours and i have similar concerns despite the fact that ds has always been able. at schools like this able just means more work and just because you're an able 6yo doesn't mean you're ready to be spending all your time doing homework!

it makes me quite jealous when i read teachers on here like the one who said that her year ones have just started spellings, only have four or five to learn and they've left the younger borns alone for now. that would never happen in our school.

I suppose the moral of this story is that if you are not finding spelling easy then you obviously struggle, and if you find the spellings easy then they tend to expect much more. It makes me want to start singing the words to "Another Brick in the Wall".

I today requested that he not participate in the tests at all until his reading is more fluent. He was given eight more h/f words yesterday and he can confidently read all but one (want). He can read this within a text, but reading the word alone he reads it as rhyming with "pant".

I am sure he will get there because, as Masha says, he wants to and this is half the battle. I suppose it's just getting the damn school to back off a bit and give him space to breathe.

If I get a "no" to letting him avoid the tests for the time being, I think I will just tell them that I refuse to attempt to learn them with him until he is ready. I think though that the teacher will agree. Well, hoping so.

Thanks for your words of wisdom everyone. It just proves how schools operate so differently to one another.